


It's When He Wakes Up Killing, With a Smile on His Face

by QueenWuppy



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Soft Toys, Very violent nightmares, it manages to be both fluff and angst in a very short span, unicorns?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWuppy/pseuds/QueenWuppy
Summary: The worst dreams he gets are not any of those.He had one of those tonight.Then he gets up and pretends he hasn't had a nightmare.For the key exchange over on the WI discord





	It's When He Wakes Up Killing, With a Smile on His Face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepyoceanprince (fynndin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fynndin/gifts).



> For... actually, I don't know who prompted this, yet? The prompt was _Fluffy pink unicorns, dancing on rainbows_ but this was the closest I got.  
>  We have since done some detective work! we think it is Prince's prompt! thank you prince! I hope you like it C:  
> I hope you like it?
> 
> And thanks to Icarus for doing spell/grammar checking and to Bill for finding the word I needed ahaha

Bucky has nightmares.

  
He wakes up from them, cold and shivering, hands ripping apart his pillows, with the taste of blood in his mouth and tears leaking down his face as he clings to his own name in his mind.

He hardly knows it some nights, and is always grateful when JARVIS wakes him, repeating his name over and over.

It makes him feel sane. Saner, he corrects himself.

He still feels cold, and so sometimes he gets up to make himself hot cocoa, sometimes he gets more blankets, sometimes he asks JARVIS to turn up the heat, and sometimes, he does nothing at all; he just lays in his bed feeling cold to his bones.

He can still taste blood, and so sometimes he gets up to make himself hot cocoa, sometimes he finds something to eat, sometimes he uses his mouthwash, and sometimes he just swallows and the metallic taste sticks to his teeth.

Tonight, after he wakes violently up, he stills his hands part way through the action of breaking his pillow’s neck. He lays still and listens to JARVIS speak. His shoulder hurts even though he has it propped with pillows to prevent its weight pulling on his spine while he sleeps.

Aside from the british voice soothingly rambling away about nothing, it is silent.

He doesn’t want to see faces in his dreams ever again. He doesn’t want to see Tony with Bucky’s knife in his gut, or Steve with Bucky’s hands around his throat, or Natasha at the end of his scope. He doesn’t want to see them in his dreams ever again, but he knows that they’re okay. That he hasn’t killed them. They aren’t his worst dreams.

He hates it when he dreams of the chair and the…. persuasive … techniques that were used on him. He never wants to feel like he’s less than human again. He never wants to feel that kind of pain again, the all-consuming nature of it, the inability to think because of it.

He doesn’t like dreaming of the targets HYDRA had pointed him at, the ones that were just in their way, Maria Stark is in his head all the time these days, even when he’s awake. He wishes he couldn’t remember the faces of the kids he’s killed.

The worst dreams he gets are not any of those.

The worst dreams he gets are the ones that he doesn’t regret. The men and women that HYDRA pointed at, and it wasn’t just the Winter Soldier that killed them, it was Bucky Barnes and he _loved_ it. He wakes up and knows that he would do it again. He wakes up, and he… has a smile on his face.

He is like that tonight. He replays the scene in his mind, a handler of his he never learned the name of, and a knife in hand, and he is allowed to make it messy. He is silent as he makes his way up behind the man, and makes little noise when he puts a hand on the man’s shoulder to prevent the knife catching and lifting the man instead of slicing, and he _is making him pay_ for everything that he did to Bucky, everything he made him become…

The run of the knife isn’t straight. It is jagged where the man has tried to pull away from him screaming, and Bucky - for it _is_ Bucky - happily goes with the movement to drag out the pain.

Bucky hates these dreams, they remind him that he’s not just the Winter Soldier because he was made, but also because it is who he is.

He stares at the ceiling, and it is dark grey in the closed room. It looks like how he feels.

He stays awake, disgusted with himself and wishing he were anyone else, until the gloomy sunlight filters through his heavy curtains and turns everything a light grey.

“It is six AM, sir. Breakfast is being served on the communal floor,” JARVIS says quietly, so as not to startle him into throwing a knife at the speakers. Again.

He shuts his eyes hard, and exhales painfully.

Then he gets up and pretends that he hasn’t had a nightmare.

 

 

***

 

 

His day goes as normal.

 

 

***

 

 

After dinner, when he gets back into his room, he sees a huge stuffed animal on his bed.

It’s pink. It has sparkly bits. It is fluffy beyond belief. It is… a unicorn. And there is a note pinned to the front of it.

 

_Buckybear,_  
_Here is a friend you can’t hurt when you snuggle with him in your sleep_

_T_  
_p.s. any repairs can be done in a day_

 

Bucky can feel his cheeks flaming, but he bends forward to pick up the doll. It’s roughly the same height as he is when he rears it up on its hind legs. It’s about as heavy as an adult man, clearly weighted to feel like that, and it’s heated. Bucky can feel it against his flesh hand, and it’s running at body temperature. He can feel the stiffness of the material its structure is made of when he places is carefully back on the left hand side of his bed. He unpins the note, and gently puts it in his bedside drawer.

He has already brushed his teeth and so he just strips and climbs into his bed. He pulls the unicorn closer, and arranges it so that it is spooning behind him. He drags its front leg over his side and holds it to his chest.

He feels less lonely.

He settles down, JARVIS turning off the lights and heightening his other senses, he can hear a rhythmic pulsing sound from the unicorn. It has a heartbeat. Bucky holds the limb closer, squeezing it.

He mentioned this to Tony about a week ago. What he misses most about not being able to fall asleep with other people is that he can’t ever hear the comforting sound of someone else’s heartbeat. Tony built him a way to have that. _(And it smells like Tony’s workshop.)_

 

Several hours later, when he wakes up to JARVIS kindly telling him his location, the date and then his name, _his name_ , Bucky has his hands clenched around the unicorn’s neck. He lets go, and the unicorn fluffs back to its original state.

Bucky buries his face in the unicorn, and can feel his sobs soaking into the fabric. Bucky shoves his shoulder under the unicorn’s limb, and the leg pops back over his side.

He doesn’t feel cold.

 

 

***

 

 

He sees Tony at breakfast that day, though Tony is clearly mostly out of it, and just about ready to head to bed after a full night creating things in his workshop.

“Thank you,” Bucky whispers into Tony’s shoulder as he passes next to him. Tony stills, and looks quickly at him, examining his face for a few seconds, and then a small gentle smile graces his face.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Many years later, even after Tony has created a version of Extremis entirely so that he can sleep in the same bed as Bucky without Bucky being scared he might accidentally kill him, they still have Joe in their bedroom, though he is confined to the armchair. His pink fur has started fading, and his false heartbeat has slowed, and most of his glitter has worn off.  
> Bucky still cuddles with the doll when Tony is away. And Tony has started doing the same, when Bucky is away.)


End file.
